


The Incident Four Months Ago

by erilean



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: I mean, Non-Graphic Violence, One Shot, Prequel, Throne of Glass, she is an assassin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1531394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erilean/pseuds/erilean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot.<br/>Celaena Sardothien tries to escape the slave camp, Endovier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Incident Four Months Ago

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sarah J. Maas owns all, alas, I own nothing.
> 
> This was something I had to do for school (they pitched the task like "create a piece of writing based off of a literary character"). I revised it a bit, tried to make it less wordy I guess but it still sounds school-ish and like I'm trying to impress an examiner or something so I'M SORRY.
> 
> First oneshot, enjoy!

_My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

 _My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

~*~

The assassin recognises the feeling—the white hot rage, boiling, deep in her stomach.

It starts with a tiny scream, muffled by all her other thoughts and feelings.  It hisses and spits, igniting her mind with madness and fury, destroying and mutilating the thin sheet of humanity and warmth left intact within her.

It hacks away at the soft parts,

the crooks filled with love,

the scraps of hope, of happiness—for these are weaknesses; always weaknesses.

The inferno in her stomach rages and screeches, tosses and shreds, all the while still

boiling

and still growing,

rising,

mounting,

escalating—a tide of untarnished hatred, ripped of all fear.  Cold fire.  Silent wrath.

She cannot defeat it.  She doesn’t  _want_  to defeat it.  It's safe in here.  In the silent wrath, in the cold fire.  It is safe.  It takes control of her, like it did when Sam was murdered, like it did this day, nine—

The assassin sucks in a splintered breath; her numb, listless eyes suddenly igniting with the cold fire.  Nine years ago.  Like it did this day nine years ago, when they killed her parents.

Somewhere inside the assassin, the cold erupts.

_~*~_

_My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

 ~*~

Everything is slow.  Everything is still.  Everything is sharp, when the whip comes down.  The assassin catches it, one-handed, blocking it from the tiny Eyllwe girl.  Before the overseer can even turn to raise a brow, her pickaxe is up in the air, and down on him, leaving dead fat and leather to slap the salt floor.

The overseer has picked the wrong day.  The wrong day to push her.  The wrong day to touch the tiny Eyllwe girl.  The wrong day to  _breath_.  Because today is the anniversary of her parents’ death, and Sam is gone, and she is alone.  And because the assassin has had enough.

 _She_  is Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan's greatest assassin, and the overseer, the sentries, the  _king_ , are the dirt beneath her feet.

A wicked line (a  _smile_ , perhaps?), distorts the mask of salt and dirt on her face.

The Wyrd save them.

 ~*~

 _My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

 ~*~

The other slaves watch—some awestruck, some petrified, some with wild horror painted on their hollow, emaciated faces.  They watch her run and they watch her slice through sentry after sentry, as a never-ending stream of them cascade out of hidden rooms and trap doors within the mine.  She slaughters every one of them without thought: easily, swiftly.  Squashing weeds.  Swatting flies.  She glides with a predator’s grace and speed, her movements deliberate and calculated—totally unnatural of one who has been imprisoned in Endovier for half a year.

“That wouldn’t be  _Celaena Sardothien!_ ” The slaves’ hurried whispers, terrified, confused and oddly excited, fizz in the air, as the assassin tears through the shaft.

“By the Wyrd, she’s fast!”

“Adarlan’s Assassin!”

“What's she doing? Doesn't she realise that trying to escape Endovier is suicide?”

“Is that really  _her?_ What’s she  _doing?”_

“Maybe... maybe she's not trying to escape  _Endovier_.”

“...Sad.”

“She's snapped is what!”

“Oh, she's snapped alright.”

But the hum of whispers are non-existent to the assassin. They are beat down by the silence inside her head and thrumming of her heart:  _my name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

The arrows do not fly to the girl they all watch.  They have all figured it out by now: the sentries will not kill her—not unless they have to.  The King does not wish it.  What he _wishes_  is satisfaction. Of her suffering.  Of making her live through the salt mines.  And Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan’s Assassin, will not let him have it.

~*~

 _My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

 ~*~

Enveloped in her silent wrath, the assassin is aware of only two things: the next step her feet will take, and the assured destruction of anything in the way.  There is nothing else.  No salt.  No slaves.  No sentry’s whip.

The assassin doesn’t stop.  Doesn’t think.  The silent wrath has built up a barricade in her mind, not pausing to let anything else slide through.  She has run sixteen feet.  She does not stop.

 _My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.

Despite her decrepit, starving form, the assassin— _Celaena_ —feels strong.  Strong and light and great.  They come at her from all directions, trying to stop her reaching the wall, trying to knock her out, trying, in vain to disarm her and not kill her.  Empowered by adrenalin of the silent wrath, Celaena leaps, her spindly, starved limbs, suddenly lethal weapons, as she thrusts a pickaxe at a sentry, dispatching another two with their own swords.

Blood is everywhere.

She is everywhere.

 

Celaena is no longer a slave; no longer an empty vessel with a pickaxe, or a boat half full of water, or a bone building, wrapped in layers of skin and guilt.  She is no longer the dust and smoke, and salt that she mines.

Celaena is the wind: leaping, falling, flying, whipping.  Sharp.  Beautiful.  Deadly.  And she will never, not ever, give up. 

 

She is not afraid

not afraid

not afraid.

She will not be afraid; she doesn't care; she is not afraid.

 

She doesn't stop.  She can see the wall.

She doesn't stop.

She doesn't stop.

She

doesn't

stop.

 

The wall.

 

The sentry.

 

Her heart

Her hair

her bones

her mind

her soul.

 

The wall.

 

The sentry.

~*~

She doesn't stop.  Everything else does.  It doesn't matter.

Every thing is slow.  Everything is still.  Everything is sharp.

Everything is beautiful.

She is not afraid.

 

 _My name is Celaena Sardothien, and I will not be afraid_.


End file.
